Vin Scully contract extension – Mark Langill

Happy news today with the announcement of Vin Scully signing a two-year contract extension through the 2008 season. Scully is the most popular personality in Los Angeles franchise history, but his career started with the Brooklyn organization after he graduated from Fordham University. Needing a No. 3 announcer after Ernie Harwell joined the New York Giants, Red Barber recommended the New York native to Dodger President Branch Rickey after the 1949 season. During his first Spring Training in Vero Beach in 1950, Scully posed for this picture with Barber and Connie Desmond (center). By the time Barber left the Dodgers after the 1953 season, the baton had been passed from one Hall of Famer to another.

176 Comments

I’m glad Vin Scully’s contract was extended. Since moving up to (blech) Giants country a few years ago, I’ve missed hearing Scully calling games. With Giants sportscasters being anything but unbiased, even going to the point of “eliminating” fans(rubbing over people in the crowd with a telestrator in between pitches, usually fans from opposing teams), I miss Scully’s class, often letting the crowd tell the story rather than drawing on people.

I’d have to say, though, one of my favorite memories of Vin Scully happened last year, when on Opening Day against SF, the Giants’ broadcasting trailer unfortunatelly caught fire, and the Dodgers’ broadcasting team let the Giants use LA’s feed for FSN Bay Area. Hearing Scully call Opening Day in Giants country was truly beautiful, even though it lasted only an inning or two.

Can’t wait to get down to SoCal to hear Scully call a game again… for me, a game at Dodger Stadium isn’t the same unless you can hear Scully on the radio calling it as well.

One of my earliest memories happened when my parents added extra speakers around our house so that we could hear Vin call the Dodger games. If I ever had the chance to meet Mr. Scully it would be just to say “Thanks.” The stories, great moments and the class in which he announced them are cherished memories. Thanks, Vin!

Good afternoon everyone. Hope you all have a super Memorial Day. Thanks to all our vets both past and present. And a special thought and prayer to all those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country and way of life!!!!

Well, you certainly were right, tru! “No way they get 42,000 tomorrow” you said. Or something to that effect.
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Numbers News:
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We went over a million in attendance today. Game 28. We did it last year in Game 23.
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Our winning streak stays alive. 11 straight. 🙂
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We should easily cross over the 200,000-drop threshold tomorrow. :-):-)
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Game 28′s attendance (2010): 42,459
Today’s attendance courtesy of Vinny, lbirken and trumom : 30,621 (all people this time)
Greater than last year = 5 / Less than last year = 22
11th straight game of negative attendance
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Games less than 30,000 this season – 5
Games less than 30,000 in 2005 – 2010: none
Last game was 9/14/2004 – 29,704
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Lowest attended game of the year: Game 8 – 27,439
Largest single game drop: Game 18 (55,662 – 28,419 = 27,243)
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2010 attendance (28 games) – 1,200,382 (42,871 average)
2011 attendance (28 games) – 1,004,009 (35,857 average) #9 in MLB
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Drop of 196,373 total
Average drop of 7013
Extrapolated for 81 games – 568,079
Projected 2011 final attendance – 2,904,455
2010′s final attendance – 3,562,318 (#3 in MLB)
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Next game’s (29) attendance in 2010 – 48,207

Watchgamefilm is btteer than nothing, but there were some downloading time and compatibilty issues from time to time. We have had none of those problems with Hudl. They have been very responsive to our questions and very easy to work with. I also prefer to be able to draw over the film and make text comments over the top of the film as well to help the kids learn. There isn’t a way to tag plays, repository or do highlights with watchgamefilm. I save 50-60 hours doing that alone by using Hudl. I also want to use it as a teaching tool, with Hudl, Hudl will e-mail certain clips to one or all of my kids with my comments, drawings there to coach them up. Hudl is easier to use for me and just has so much more functionality for what I want to use and I’m sure I probably used just 10-20% of the features.

First off, thanks to all those who have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice themselves for the continuation of the American Way of life. Words will never be enough to show my gratitude, but every day is Memorial Day for me. Though I’m no soldier, I know that the only reason I’m free to live the life I want (within reason) and make my own decisions is because of the brave, peerless men and women of the military. Thanks again.

Loney has a VORP of -6.0 as of 5/29. So, I guess we will see tomorrow how much it goes up. He’s still by far the worst player on the team and one of the worst in baseball by this particular grading standard. If he keeps hitting well, it should improve.

Good evening all.
Late arrival tonight for me. Just got off work.
Are my eyes & ears deceiving me, or have the bats woke up?
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Just want to express thanks & gratitude to ALL my fellow veterans who’ve served – past & present. Especially to those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice.
Freedom isn’t free.
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It still looks very empty, no matter what they say is the attendance. Like I said before, the bleachers are so empty you can read the seat numbers. The yellow seats are the same. When they try to do a wave…there aren’t enough people to keep it going 🙂

Doh, Exactly!! Not to mention the price of the ticket and they soak your ass for soft drinks or beer. Hell, go to the grocery store, stay home and grill out and they probably cost less than a freakin’ buck..

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all who have given their all for our freedom. If you haven’t watched this, you need to. If you have seen it, you’ll want to watch it again:
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Now we move from the important to the not-so-important: the 200,000 threshold has been passed today.
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Game 29’s attendance (2010): 48,207
Today’s attendance courtesy of trumom : 36,962
Greater than last year = 5 / Less than last year = 23
12th straight game of negative attendance
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Games less than 30,000 this season – 5
Games less than 30,000 in 2005 – 2010: none
Last game was 9/14/2004 – 29,704
.
Lowest attended game of the year: Game 8 – 27,439
Largest single game drop: Game 18 (55,662 – 28,419 = 27,243)
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2010 attendance (29 games) – 1,248,589 (43,055 average)
2011 attendance (29 games) – 1,040,971 (35,896 average) #9 in MLB
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Drop of 207,618 total
Average drop of 7159
Extrapolated for 81 games – 579,899
Projected 2011 final attendance – 2,907,540
2010’s final attendance – 3,562,318 (#3 in MLB)
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Next game’s (30) attendance in 2010 – 37,944

Ethier was in a 2-for-31 slump going into Friday’s game, which dropped his average from .362 to .311. Since then, he’s gone 8-for-14 with two doubles and a home run.

James Loney homered Monday for the second time in four games, after going 45 games between home runs. That was part of a three-hit and three-RBI game for him. Loney is batting 32-for-99 (.323) in his last 31 games.

By The Numbers: 43—Home runs by SS Rafael Furcal as a member of the Dodgers. Furcal, in his sixth year with the team, is one away from Glenn Wright’s total for second place among Dodgers shortstops. The leader is Pee Wee Reese with 122 home runs over 16 seasons. Furcal’s 14 leadoff homers as a Dodger rank second behind first-base coach Davey Lopes’ 28.

Something you don’t see often and this team went 4/4 with risp and they should show risp with the based loaded. I don’t know why espn don’t put the OF numbers of assists there same with yahoo but it wouldn’t be so bad and I guess since it such a rare thing they don’t bother with it.

Chad Billingsley (4-4) allowed one run and a career-high 11 hits in seven innings, struck out eight and walked two. The right-hander improved to 2-2 in his sixth home start after his teammates produced the kind of run support that he had been lacking, getting just 1.29 runs—third-lowest in the majors—in his previous home games. Billingsley lowered his home ERA to 1.71.

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